October 7, 2008 Report: Iran forces down Western plane

TEHRAN,Iran (AP) - Iranian news reports say Iran forced a Western aircraft that accidentally entered its airspace to land, then allowed the plane to continue after questioning its passengers.

The semi-official Fars news agency says the plane was American, but the state-owned Al-Alam television quotes an unidentified senior Iranian official as saying it belonged to a European aid agency. Neither report says when the incident took place.

U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Patrick Ryder, a Defense Department spokesman, says he has no information that any such incident had occurred and was checking the report.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hasan Qashqavi says he has no information about the case.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)